Updated at 01:35 PM EDT, 09/18/13

In a critical test flight for NASA's space station program, an Orbital Sciences Corp. Antares rocket making only its second flight blasted off from the Virginia coast Wednesday, lofting an unmanned cargo ship on its maiden flight to the international lab complex.

The demonstration mission is a critical test run for Orbital to prove the company's new rocket and Cygnus cargo ship can execute an autonomous rendezvous with the space station and, if necessary, carry out an abort if something goes wrong.

If the four-day trip to the station is successful, Orbital will be clear to begin routine cargo delivery missions later this year, joining Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, in a commercial program intended to make up for the retirement of the space shuttle.

Using recycled engines originally built for Russia's moon program, the Antares first stage roared to life at 10:58 a.m. EDT (GMT-4), quickly pushing the 133-toot-tall rocket away from its launching stand at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA's Wallops Island, Va., flight facility.

The Orbital Sciences Corp. Antares rocket moments after launch, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2013.

Burning kerosene and liquid oxygen, the refurbished Aerojet Rocketdyne AJ-26 engines fired for nearly four minutes, boosting the rocket out of the dense lower atmosphere and into the orbital plane of the space station.

Dramatic television views from a camera mounted on the rocket showed the Virginia coastline receding in the background and then the limb of the Earth as the spacecraft accelerated toward orbit. A few moments later, the spent first stage could be seen falling away.

The Antares second stage, powered by an Alliant Techsystems solid-fuel motor, then took over, igniting at an altitude of about 116 miles and firing for two-and-a-half minutes to put the spacecraft into an initial orbit with a high point, or apogee, of about 186 miles and a low point, or perigee, of around 151 miles.

A few moments later, the cargo ship was released from the spent second stage motor and its two solar panels unfolded as planned.

The rest is here:

Orbital launches cargo ship on maiden flight to space station